


the price of uncertainty

by superfluouskeys



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Because it makes me sad, F/F, One Shot, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), just a little alternative to her me2 romance scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 00:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: Perhaps her mistake was that Shepard knows all too well the price of uncertainty, knows that a leader must sound sure of herself even when she is furthest from it.  Perhaps this is why Shepard sees through Samara's thin deflection.





	the price of uncertainty

**Author's Note:**

> A quick one-shot alternative to Samara's ME2 romance scene, and a result of my live write! Come say hi to me at twitch.tv/superfluouskeys if you're into that sort of thing!

It has been a very long time since Samara has felt able to speak to someone as an equal.  At first, she imagines that Commander Shepard is the sort who would never think herself inferior to anyone, would never doubt herself in the presence of anyone.  At first, she imagines they will not see eye to eye on most matters.

She is pleased to be proven wrong.

One day, as she leans awkwardly against the leg of a sofa, clearly unaccustomed to sitting on the floor, Shepard asks Samara whether her strict code forbids romance.

Samara feels her insides flutter.  It's a curious sensation, one she hasn't felt in so long that she was certain the sensation was lost to her.  She had loved the mother of her children very deeply—yet another reason that she must swear herself to the Code in order to do what must be done—but she is long-dead, and Samara is nearly one thousand years old.

She tells some of this to Shepard, that she feels the weight of every last year in her heart, that she would never be interested in romance, and she sounds all the more certain for how uncertain the conversation has rendered her.

Perhaps her mistake was that Shepard knows all too well the price of uncertainty, knows that a leader must sound sure of herself even—especially—when she is furthest from it.  Perhaps this is why Shepard sees through Samara's thin deflection.

Assuming they survive this mission, there will be other matters to attend to.  The world comes to a halt for such matters—the destruction of the galaxy demands no less—but once its continuation has been assured, there remains a galaxy to attend to.  Shepard might be young, but Samara is certain she is not so naive as to think that their goals will continue to align once this is over.

Indeed, under different circumstances, their goals would never have aligned at all.  Samara remembers the way she felt at first, the disgust and the churning inner turmoil that came of being bound by the oath she had sworn, standing by as Shepard made calls which violated something Samara held far deeper and dearer than the Justicar's Code.

On the field, Shepard comes off as cold, even cruel.  But Samara has seen how she cares.  It would be a disservice to deny that.

Perhaps this is why, when Shepard reaches for Samara's hands one day, she does not pull away.

"I have seen you commit acts which would compel me to violence against you, were I not sworn to your service," she says.  She is surprised to see the shadow of hurt flash across Shepard's eyes.

"And when I met you, I watched you throw someone out a window," Shepard snaps back.  "Why?  Because she wouldn't tell you what you needed to know."

"She was a criminal," Samara replies evenly, but Shepard cuts her off.

"We all do what we think is necessary," she says.  "Doesn't matter how you try to justify it."

"By my Code, I am—"

"Yeah, I know," says Shepard, sharply.  "But what about you?  Just you.  Your morals."

Samara opens her mouth as though to speak, but nothing comes, and she finds that it is only pride that prevents her from averting her gaze.  She cannot remember the last time she was at a loss for words.

"My morals are...inconsequential," she manages after a long silence, her voice thin.

Shepard leans in, narrows her eyes.  Samara has seen men crumble under the weight of such an expression.  "Do you really believe that?" she challenges.

And she hasn't quite let go of the tips of Samara's fingers, and Samara hasn't quite pushed her away.

Samara closes her eyes, inhales deeply, endeavours to distance herself from her immediate surroundings before she speaks.  "What would my personal morals have wrought in the face of a tragedy, Shepard?  I would have wanted to protect my daughter.  I would have allowed her to continue to wreak havoc across the galaxy, because I would not have had the strength to stop her."

"That's over, Samara," says Shepard, as gently as she ever says anything.  "What about now?"

Samara feels herself laugh, or something close to it.  It's a mirthless breath of a sound that escapes her lungs without her permission.  She opens her eyes.  "Now," she echoes quietly, and her gaze falls to where Shepard's hands have yet to let go of hers.

"It may surprise you to know, Shepard, that I was once a very romantic sort.  Now, if my values were my own, I might permit myself to become distracted from the mission for which you have brought me here."

Now it is Shepard's turn to answer with a small breath of amusement.  "I'm sure you know that doesn't sound as discouraging as you want it to."

Samara feels herself smiling.  "No, I suppose it doesn't."

 _Please, stop this_ , she ought to say.  A large part of her even wants to.  But Shepard's insistence has led Samara to doubt herself.  Who is it that feels compelled to push Shepard away?  The Justicar?  The matriarch Asari?  If Samara's values, if her life, were her own, how would she proceed?

But of course she knows the answer to that already.  The question is whether her personal feelings matter—whether she can allow them to matter.

Another question to which she ought to know the answer.  She squeezes Shepard's hands, even allows herself to pull them closer to her.  "In another life," she breathes, and she feels herself quite suddenly on the verge of desperation.  "Another world."

"Why not this one?" Shepard demands, low and severe, and when Samara tries to back away again, she finds she has already been backed into the far wall of her room.  There is nowhere to turn, nowhere to look but into Shepard's piercing gaze, and—

"What a strange thing it is," she hears herself saying aloud, as though from far away, "to feel the resolve of centuries....weakening."

Perhaps she had expected the comment to render Shepard cocky.  She is surprised to find that it produces the opposite result.  There's a curious set about Shepard's features now, a tenseness in the lips and a wrinkle about the brow as she considers what Samara has said.

Samara thinks at first that it is strange, that this flash of uncertainty should be the thing to break her resolve at last.  But sometime after she has taken Shepard's face in her hands and kissed her, allowed Shepard to dig her fingers into Samara's waist and press her fully against the wall of the observation deck, allowed her ironclad control upon herself to slacken, and allowed her mind to reach out to Shepard's, to create a space for the two of them outside the confines of the physical world—

Indeed, a very long time after all of this has occurred, Samara considers that perhaps it is not so strange, after all.


End file.
